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[ Keys & Checklist/Picturebooks ] "African Dark and Dusty Amanita"
Technical description (t.b.d.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The following is based on the description of Beeli ( 1935) and on data obtained from recent collections, etc. At the outset, it must be said that this species may not be correctly placed in Amanita section Validae. The cap is 40 mm wide, plano-convex, smooth, and fleshy. Its margin is striate and nonappendiculate. It bears fuliginous pulverulence from volval tissue that give it a generally dark appearance; however, recent photographs show an orangish color under the pulverulence. A membranous patch of volva may also be left on the pileus according to Beeli, and this is seen on the left most cap in the photograph above.. The cap's flesh is white. The gills are free, attenuate at both ends, white, and 4 - 5 mm broad. The short gills were not described by Beeli. The stem of A. fuliginosa is 60 x 4 - 5 mm, cylindric or narrowing upward., solid, pallid, but often with fuligineous coloring from the volva. The stipe's flesh is white. The superior annulus is very thin, rather fragile, and white (actually it is missing from all recently collected material and in Mme. Goossens' painting of the holotype). There may be membranous brownish patches of volva on the bulb and cupulate remains at the stipe base. The membranous remains appear to have been an outer covering of the pulverulent part of the volva. The taste and odor were not described by Beeli. The spores [of recently collected material from Zambia] measure (8.2-) 8.4 - 11.5 (-13.5) x 7.4 - 10.5 (-11.5) µm and are subglobose to broadly ellipsoid and lightly, but distinctly, amyloid. Beeli described its habitat as wet forest. This species was described from Congo and is known from central Africa. Despite the striate pileus margin and the cupulate remains of the volva at the stipe base, this species has been treated as assignable to Amanita section Validae. The farinose volval remains on pileus and stipe along with the previously cited characters suggest that this species might better be accommodated as a rather isolated entity in Amanita section Amidella. The spores are quite round compared to other taxa of that section. This possibility should be further explored. It is also possible that A. fuliginosa is a relictual descendent of an entity in transition between section Amidella and section Validae. However, this conflicts with the presently held hypothesis that section Amidella has an ancestor in common with sect. Phalloideae; and that the latter has a common ancestor with section Validae.Beeli thought this species close to Amanita echinulata Beeli but the differences are much greater than he enumerated. Gilbert thought this species was simply based on an old collection of A. echinulata; however, older specimens do not have larger spores than younger specimens. The spores of A. fuliginosa from my measurements and the drawings of Gilbert (1940) are twice the length of those of the type of A. echinulata. The species also differ in the nature of the volva, the color of the cap, and the striations on the margin of A. fuliginosa. -- R. E. Tulloss Photo courtesy of David Arora (Zambia).
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